


The Birthday

by PondAmyPond



Category: Tuck Everlasting - Miller/Tysen/Shear & Federle, Tuck Everlasting - Natalie Babbitt
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Canon Divergent, F/M, Fluff, Jesse and Winnie are both older than the original canon, Post canon, What if Winnie drank the water?, because 17 year olds shouldn't get married, shut up i have principles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-03 01:30:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11521707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PondAmyPond/pseuds/PondAmyPond
Summary: It's Winnie Foster's 21st Birthday. The day she chooses which path her life will take. The last and first day of her life.





	The Birthday

**Author's Note:**

> What if Winnie drank the water? 
> 
> The quote at the beginning and end of this is from the musical (as is the character of Hugo who is mentioned briefly) because I love the musical. I just think it should end differently :D
> 
> (Both Jesse and Winnie are older in this than they are in canon because I like it better this way. Fight me.)
> 
> ENJOY!

_ There are two ways home down one long road. One clear path to two conclusions. Does the story end? Or never end? Does the secret fade? Or is it everlasting? _

 

_ … … …  _

 

Winnie Foster stopped running her fingers through her hair and looked at her reflection in the ornate mirror. Cocking her head to one side, she appraised herself. Her flowing locks of brown waves fell around her shoulders, cascading like a waterfall onto the simply elegant pale green gown. It was, she thought, the perfect outfit for the first and last day of one’s life. She smiled at herself, imagining Jesse’s bounding laugh at that last thought. Then she shook her head, spun on her white satin heel, and walked towards the sounds of party preparation downstairs. 

 

… … ...

 

Jesse Tuck stood in front of the mirror and pulled his fingers through his hair, teasing it this way and that, pulling faces as it failed to sit the way he imagined it should. Behind him, his mother hid a smile behind her hand and walked forward, pushing away his hands and deftly fixing his hair for him, in that way that only a mother can. Jesse turned around to face her, bouncing on his toes.

 

“I know,” Mae said, before her son could open his mouth. “But it’ll be fine. You look fine.”

“It’s just been so long, Ma,” Jesse frowned, doubts and panic flowing freely through his mind. “What if she poured it away? What if I’ve been fooling myself for five years?” He hung his head and stared at his freshly polished shoes. 

 

Mae placed her hand comfortingly on Jesse’s shoulder. “You haven’t.” The simple surety of her voice made Jesse look up at her and smile, a sudden beam of sunlight that would be blinding to anyone who wasn’t used to it. Mae returned his smile with a soft one of her own, and then pushed him gently towards the door. “Go on now, you’ll be late.” 

 

Jesse walked to the door and turned back to his mother, his shapely outline silhouetted in the fading light. “Late Ma? Not today. Never today!” And with one last blinding grin, he was gone. 

 

… … … 

 

“So how does it feel then, Winnie? You’re officially a woman now!” 

 

Winnie laughed. Her mother was oddly dramatic when she wanted to be, but today it felt sort of fitting. “Wonderful, mother. It feels wonderful.” 

 

What a perfect word to describe her day. No girl could ever say her twenty-first birthday had been celebrated better than Winnie Foster. Her mother had made a four layer birthday cake, there had been a party of people from all walks of life in Treegap. Hugo had presented her with the most beautiful leather notebook “in which to journal the next twenty one years!”, and her mother had given her a lovely emerald and silver necklace and a pair of matching earrings. And Winnie could say with certainty that she had never had a happier day. 

 

A flash of melancholy flooded through her. Tonight she would leave all of this behind. Winnie watched her mother out of the corner of her eye as she continued clearing away plates of half eaten cake. She would miss her more than anything, the thought of not seeing her in this house every day sending a pang of pain through her heart. But it was time. Five years was long enough to make this decision, and she had changed her mind back and forth so many times she had lost track. In the end though, it came down to just one thing, and that had never changed. So tonight Winnie Foster would leave her home, and Treegap, and New Hampshire, all of this would just become a lovely memory. 

 

In a rush of emotions, Winnie swept up to her mother and pulled her into a hug. She breathed in deeply and vowed to remember it all, every detail. 

 

“Winnie! Whatever has come over you?!” Her mother squeezed her back a little bemusedly. 

 

“I love you,” came the muffled reply as Winnie buried her face in her mother’s shoulder. “It has been the most wonderful day ever. Thank you.” Winnie sniffed back her tears, knowing as her mother could not, exactly how much was encompassed in those words. Releasing her hold and stepping back so she could take in every inch of her mother and commit it to memory, Winnie managed a shaky smile. “Why don’t you go to bed, mother? It’s late, and I can finish clearing away.”

 

Her mother shook her head in bewilderment. “Alright. I do feel a little tired, it’s been a long day.” Winnie watched her mother make her way up the stairs. At the corner, just before she disappeared from sight, she paused and turned back to her daughter. It suddenly struck her how grown up she was now. A woman in her own right. “I love you too, Winnie,” she said. Then she continued up to bed, and fell promptly asleep, dreaming of her beautiful daughter and how her own life had looked at twenty-one.

 

Winnie gathered up the remaining glasses and plates from around the drawing room, stacking them neatly on the worktop in the kitchen for Rebecca, the maid, to deal with in the morning. Then she stood in the gathering gloom of the sitting room and spun slowly in a circle. There was the antique clock on the mantel that had ticked away every second of Winnie’s life thus far. There was the small dent in the wall where she had crashed into it at aged eleven, trying to catch a toad she had made friends with. There was the powder blue cushion of the sofa that her mother sat upon every morning to darn stockings and crochet pillowcases. A whole life in one room.

 

And there, in the corner, in an unassuming frame, sat upon an end table, was the photograph of Winnie aged two, her mother, and her father, together all smiling at the camera. Winnie walked over and picked it up, caressing her finger over the image of her family. Then, after a moment of deliberation, she took the photograph up the stairs with her and placed it carefully into the middle of her already packed suitcase, wrapping it gently in a sweater. Double checking the neatly folded clothes and the few more personal items, she shut the lid and did up the brass clips that held it in place. She pulled on a pale brown travelling cloak, and a pair of soft white gloves that matched her shoes. Climbing quietly out of the window, pulling the suitcase out after her, Winnie Foster took one last look around her room and smiled a soft bittersweet smile. 

 

“Goodbye,” she whispered. 

 

… … …

 

Jesse looked at his watch again. The face seemed to be laughing at him, saying it that almost mocking way “She will get here when she gets here! Patience, boy!”. The big hand stubbornly clicked onwards only one minute further than the last time he had looked. Jesse bounced on his toes, shifting his weight from foot to foot restlessly. He wanted to climb a tree. But if she arrived while he was doing that he might startle her, and that was not how he wanted to begin their new life. 

 

In fact, Jesse Tuck had been practicing the exact moment he was Winnie Foster again, over and over, for the last five years. In his head it went something like the wild romantic novels his mother sometimes read. He would be leaning nonchalantly against a tree, and Winnie would see him, drop her suitcase, and run into his arms. He would grab her up and hold her tight, and dip her low, then kiss her. When he finished kissing her, he would stand her back up, and holding both her hands he would look deep into her eyes, and say “Miss me?” And she would laugh that beautiful laugh that he loved so much, and then he would give her her birthday present.

 

That was how it went in his head. In reality, Jesse was as far from nonchalant as it is possible to be. Strange how like a twenty-two-year-old he could be sometimes, for a man who had been twenty-two for almost a hundred years. He ran his hand through his hair nervously, and then cursed himself silently for messing it up. Looking up at the sky, all he could see were leaves and trees and dappled moonlight. A memory of a similar night spent five years ago by a waterfall in light like this made him smile softly. 

 

Jesse stole another glance at his watch. Another minute gone. And it felt like an eternity. 

 

… … …

 

Winnie walked through the woods, sure of her footing. Every step had a spring to it, anticipating where it would lead her. The branches felt like old friends, each leaf familiar. The moonlight filtered through the canopy above her head and made her feel like she was bathing in starlight. Another turn and there was the waterfall, another turn and there was the enormous sycamore tree, another and there was the bending willow, and one more… And suddenly she was standing in a clearing that she had not stood in for five years. In the middle of the clearing was a huge oak tree with a “T” carved into its trunk, under which poured out a spring.  _ The _ spring.

 

But Winnie didn’t see any of this. All she could see was the gangly boy standing in front of the tree, his back to her, running his hand through his hair. Her heart stopped beating. Her eyes sparkled and pricked with what felt suspiciously like tears. And then she had dropped her suitcase and was running, sprinting the last five meters between them, and she almost threw herself at him, but pulled up just short. Instead she shook out her hair, smoothed her dress, and tapped him smartly on the shoulder. 

 

“AAAAARGH!” Jesse jumped. Winnie broke out into peals of laughter, giggles that felt like a bubbling brook that wouldn’t stop. And Jesse turned around to look into the piercing blue eyes of the girl he loved. “You made me jump,” he said, pouting slightly. He had practiced this moment, and this wasn’t how it went. Winnie swallowed her giggling, and grinned at him.

 

“Sorry, I just couldn’t help it!” Her face felt like it would burst from the force of the smile that was trying to stretch all over it. But she didn’t care. Jesse. Her Jesse. Right here, finally. Then suddenly, she was serious. 

 

Reaching into the pocket of her dress, she pulled out a small vial. Jesse stared at it. “I didn’t want to do it at home. It didn’t feel right there,” she explained as they both looked at the unassuming little bottle. Nobody else would have ever guessed that this bottle was about to change several lives. Winnie uncorked it. Jesse covered the top with his hand. She looked up at him. 

 

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to regret this.” Jesse’s eyes swam with conflict, but sincerity. Winnie smiled softly, and took his hand off the bottle, linking his fingers with her own. 

 

“I’m sure.” She kept her hand in his, and lifted the little bottle to her lips, drinking the contents in one gulp. To the outside observer nothing had changed, but both of the people in the clearing that night knew that nothing would ever be the same again. There was a beat of silence, broken abruptly by Jesse triumphantly whooping and sweeping Winnie into his arms. Spinning around, he began to laugh and Winnie joined in, their happiness too great to be contained inside themselves. 

 

Eventually he put her down. Winnie stood in front of him, her hands still clasped around his neck, his around her waist. The happy, comfortable silence between them hung in the air like a hovering butterfly. It was Winnie who broke it this time. 

 

“Miss me?” she whispered with a little sideways smile. 

 

Jesse frowned. “That was supposed to be my li-” His protest was cut off by Winnie who had grown tired of waiting, and had kissed him soundly. Jesse stopped trying to say anything and kissed her back, five years of waiting and longing and love poured into a single kiss. 

 

It was Jesse who broke away first, eliciting a tiny groan of disappointment from Winnie, a sound that Jesse filed away for later. Gesturing for Winnie not to move, Jesse took a step back out of her arms. 

 

“What are you doing?” Winnie asked.

 

“Well, I’ve been waiting five years to give you your birthday present. I just want to do it right,” Jesse replied. He dug around in his pocket for the box, and held it as he spoke. “Winnie Foster, today you turned twenty-one. I knew the second I met you that you were the only girl I would ever love, and that’s as true five years later as it was then. We agreed when I had to leave Treegap, that we would meet here, in this spot, on this day. I bought your birthday present as soon as I arrived in the next town. So…” 

 

Jesse knelt slowly onto one knee, holding out the little velvet box in front of him. Winnie gasped and pressed her hands to her mouth, smiling with tears in her eyes. 

 

“Winnie Foster, will you marry me?” Jesse opened the box, revealing a small silver band with a green stone set in the center of a tree design. 

 

Winnie couldn’t speak for a moment, only nodding furiously, tears rolling down her cheeks. When she swallowed the lump in her throat she croaked out, “Yes! Yes of course I will,” as Jesse gently pushed the ring onto her finger, and stood up, pulling her to him.

 

“I love you,” Winnie whispered. 

 

“I love you too,” Jesse whispered back, kissing her gently and wiping away her tears. 

 

Then he picked up her suitcase and held out his hand to her. Winnie took it and together they walked out of the woods of Treegap towards their shared eternity. 

 

… … …

 

_ There are two ways home down one long road. One clear path to two conclusions. Does the story end? Or never end? Does the secret fade? Or is it everlasting? _

 

_ Is it everlasting? _

  
  



End file.
